Аня: and I, a thousand less one
by coeurgryffondor
Summary: The places are foreign, a world once forbidden and evil, but what was home will never be again and Anya is left to start over. / From "But Let It Go" arc, Anya's story.
1. 1980

Author's note: From « But Let It Go, And You Learn » arc directly, you need only have read that story to understand this.

I apparently started this fic in December. It's slow writing, trying to get it to intersect with the original fic, picking history to work in, trying to get Anya from where she was when she left home to who she becomes when she was reunites with her parents, all without seeming like it. But I figured for Francis's birthday I'd start posting it. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

**Аня: and I, a thousand less one**

"_May you live a thousand years,_  
_and I, a thousand less one day;_  
_that I might never know_  
_the world without you._"  
-Hungarian proverb

1980.

"I love you Anya!" Her mother's voice, broken, defeated, rings in her ears as she stands on the edge of the platform. "I love you Anya!" her mind screams over and over. "I love you Anya!" Oh God, what if that is the last thing her mother ever says to her? The last time her father ever sees her?

Already it consumes her.

"Miss Braginski?" a French voice asks in quiet Russian behind her after what feels like an eternity. Startled Anya blinks, realizing she's been staring since the train left. Clouds have darkened, large rain drops beginning to fall.

Turning, Anya takes in the man who will now be her protector. After she had learned the truth, little time in her father's house to digest it all fully, Anya had demanded pictures. Her father had shown her portraits stashed away somewhere, of people he was suppose to have forgotten. There were hidden photos of sweet little girls in the old train car and Anya could see that the happiness her father had had on his face looking at them was the same happiness he had in photos where he held his young daughter. And her mother, she had taken Anya aside with her uncle Gilbert, shown her three old and worn photos her uncle hadn't known she'd had. Her mother had explained each one carefully.

The first had been from her mother's wedding day. It had offered up Anya's first chance to take in the man her mother had for so long called husband, the one with the name no one said. Their bodies were stiff, his face in an almost-frown, but her mother had looked happy. She had told Anya she had been, that she had loved Roderich Edelstein so much back then. But the girl knew who had taken his place in her mother's heart, a man she very much preferred to the cold Austrian.

The second had been a snapshot from before the wars, a small blond boy between her mother and uncle. His eyes were blue, though the photo was not in color. Anya had heard of him, so many stories, her uncle's brother, her mother's little boy. They had loved Ludwig, spoke of him more than they ever had that Edelstein. She could almost imagine this Ludwig was the brother she'd never had.

But the last one, the third photograph, had featured all of them. From the way they spoke of each other Anya knew the four nations had been close, the ones once called Germany and Austria and Prussia and Hungary. Their military uniforms were neat and decorated and made them look so young, so hopeful for the outcome of that war.

Her mother had cried looking at them, Uncle Gil letting a few tears go too. Yet Anya knows she cannot meet the other two men; her father had told her it would not be possible. Which leaves her taking in the French nation, Francis Bonnefoy. She's still not sure why he is the one she will be living with, though she does suppose there weren't many options. Now that she knows the six-month old truth of who her parents are, it all seems to make more sense: the private lessons, the visitors from Moscow, the many multinational people living in her house, never aging. Her father is a monster, though she cannot reconcile the image of the Soviet Union taking others prisoner with the large man who used to scoop her up in his arms, spinning her around and lavishing her with sweet kisses, the most loving and greatest man she had ever known.

"Do not cry," the Frenchman whispers, and it startles Anya to think such a simple thought had brought her to tears. "Please, Anastasiya," and his voice is calm though a little nervous, as if this Bonnefoy is as unprepared for what he is about to do as Anya is. "This will be difficult for you, I have no doubt, but I will do everything in my power to ease the pain. Only do not cry; you are too pretty for tears, and I do not have the strength to watch them fall." One hand reaches out to brush away a tear, and Anya does nothing to stop him.

His hair is long, blond, curtaining his face. There is a small beard on his chin, blue eyes shining down on her. He looks kindly, just as he did in the most recent photograph her father could find of him. Among the Allies the Frenchman had looked the most approachable, smiling between her father and another unknown nation. They had seemed almost friends in the photo.

"I am sorry," Anya whispers dutifully, dropping her head.

"There is nothing to apologize for. Come now my dear," and one hand gently slips into Anya's, pulling her forward. "We have a short car ride to a different station, and from there we shall take the train back to Paris."

With a glance back over her shoulder, Anya takes a deep breath. So this is it?

"Do not worry," the man assures her as they begin to walk towards Anya's new life. "I have a baguette, and you have I, and soon enough you will be reunited with your parents, I am sure."

In her sorrow she can almost believe him.

* * *

When they step out of the car two men in straight suits are waiting for them. Their faces are blank, cold; it frightens her. "Never let your fear show," Francis whispers in her ear, a thin arm coming around her shoulders as he raises his head proudly. One of the men leads, the other following, and Anya finds herself in a small office just off the main hall of the second train station.

She's quiet as the men talk in rapid French. She catches words here and there, missing most of it. They're speaking too quickly and she's too tired to care, her arms wrapped about her waist. In her misery and the cold wind she shivers.

A jacket is placed on her shoulders and, startled, Anya looks up to see Francis sit beside her, his arm once again coming to rest on her shoulders. He smiles brightly, a grin that's lopsided and handsome. The Frenchman winks.

One of the officials says something to Francis who shrugs, thinking for a moment before turning to Anya. "They wish," he says in slow Russian, "to change your name. For your new passport."

"Why?"

His eyebrows rise in amusement, but Anya is stubborn. "One need only know the basics of Russian to know who the father of Miss Anastasiya Ivanovna Braginski is."

"I don't care," she states flatly, her eyes falling to her knees. "My father gave me that name and I am not ashamed of him."

"This is neither about honor nor shame; it is about your safety."

"It's a point of honor to me."

The hand on her shoulder gives her a squeeze before the man says something in French that seems to upset the officials. But in the end she's handed papers that say her name in the Latin alphabet, though they do tell her that they cannot list her actual place of birth. When Francis asks if there is somewhere else she would like listed, seemingly a bit weary of what response she might give, Anya doesn't hesitate in answering.

"Budapest."

* * *

"You are very loyal to your father," Francis observes as the train pulls away from the station. "Not many are."

"My father is the greatest man alive," Anya responds simply, her gaze drifting out the window. The small town falls away, the train picking up speed as it heads in the opposite direction of her family, from the east to the west.

The French nation chuckles. "You are very much your parents' child."

* * *

Paris is overwhelming to say the least. Anya had never left her hometown before the trip, and now she's in Paris, the greatest city on earth. It's loud and fast and bright and dirty and it scares her, her body shaking and tears falling as Francis's arms envelope her. "Shh," he whispers in her hair as the car pulls up. "It's ok Anastasiya, it's going to be ok."

By the time they arrive at Francis's house Anya has only enough energy to collapse on her bed. She sleeps for over a day.

* * *

"Please, Anastasiya, open the door." He's been there for hours, pleading quietly to come in. But Anya already hates it here, wants to leave and go back to the Soviet Union and her mother's loving arm. She hasn't come out of her room for six days now, the door locked except for when food is left outside. The maid tried the first day to tempt her out but Francis had told her to leave the food for Anya. She eats in the large bathtub, her connected bathroom the only place she can escape the sunlight that streams through her windows. "Please, Anastasiya."

All the young Russian can do is hold her legs to her chest, rocking back and forth and squeezing her eyes shut, picturing a field of sunflowers and her happy parents. Even if she'd wanted to respond her voice is too hoarse from crying.

There's the gentle thud as, she imagines, his head is placed against the door. "Oh God, Anastasiya, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Forgive me God, I'm sorry Anastasiya." The tears only come faster as she listens to the man cry too.

* * *

By the time she's spent ten days in the room she's already filled one journal with letters all addressed to her mother, letters she'll never send but that she holds on to in the hope that she will one day. The Hungarian is sloppy, words misspelled, mixed with German and French and Russian. Just like her mother used to love.

Her clothes are everywhere, the linens on her bed pulled to the floor. There's a large Soviet flag she managed to smuggle out pinned to the wall, not because she believes in it but because it is her father's flag and Anya is fiercely proud of him. She doesn't care what's happened, her parents are in love and Anya will always defend their honor.

She never could have imagined she'd miss home this much.

* * *

After two weeks Francis resumes going to work. He tells her every morning when he leaves, speaking through the door his schedule for the day. Sometimes he slips clippings from the newspaper under the door; the articles are never serious, always small things about a fashion show or the most recent popular song. She watches him out the window, the way he always turns back to look up at her window. Anya ducks away at that, not wanting to be seen, but she still feels compelled to watch him sigh and walk away, defeated the way she feels defeated.

She sneaks out of her room today; the maid's only ever in on Mondays and Thursdays. Each room she finds she explores, trying to leave everything just as it had been. There's several spare guest rooms, some stately, some more homey, one sporting a Union Jack motif. Anya finds Francis's study, which is neat but messy at the same time in the way her father's office always was. The walls are almost the same shade yellow, a tumbler sitting on the desk just the way her father's desk was always set, a chair slightly ajar like the chair her mother would sit in.

There's a library packed with books and Anya gets the impression that maybe Francis is more like her father than she'd thought, looking through the tomes. They're alphabetical, divided by language as they encircle the room: most are in French, some in English and German, others in Latin and older languages she cannot place. A large panel is entirely in Russian, and when Anya pulls down that book she loves the most the cover falls open to reveal a message from her father inside.

"Francis- This is, without a doubt, my favorite novel. I think you will appreciate in it the same things I did, for have we not both known our own Anna Karenina? And have we not both lived such lives and such lies? -Ivan, 1878"

Under it, in the most beautiful French she has ever seen, her father had translated the opening line:

« Toutes les familles heureuses se ressemblent les familles malheureuses le sont chacune à leur façon. » Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Anya takes the book with her back to her room without hesitation. Having securely hid it she returns to search the rest of the house, the few rooms left. Francis's private bedroom is the easiest to identify, paintings of beautiful men and women lining the walls, plush carpets and soft bedding. There's a lavish fireplace, its mantle covered in photographs, its tiles painstakingly placed to form a swirling collection of flags with colors that bleed together; the French flag is between the British flag and the old Russian flag of the tsar.

The room that catches her attention, drawing her in even more than the library, is a dance studio in the back of the house. Large windows let light filter in, the floor worn but the mirrors clean. Stepping out of her shoes the Russian feels a weight leave her shoulders, spinning in the center of the space as if she belongs.

Ballet was always her favorite part of the week; for as long as she can remember Anya has danced. Her mother used to help her, and as she grew older they would dance together, critiquing each other. Her father, though not built for ballet, would join her when she was a child in dances that always ended in Anya being swept up in his strong arms, kisses littering their faces. She had wanted that trip to the ballet with him so badly, memorizing the music for months beforehand so that she could make him proud.

For hours she dances, the music in her head, imagining she's back at home in the small studio. She can see her mother smiling, can hear her father whispering, "That's my daughter." Anya hears her Uncle Gil's laugh, hears the applause from her Aunt Irina while the Baltic men watch from the door, Feliks pushing Toris aside to take his place to see. She used to bow after her performances, everyone standing to applaud her. Anya had thought that that was a loving home, a happy family. It had simply been unhappy in its own way apparently.

* * *

For weeks she repeats the cycle: when Francis leaves she sneaks out to dance ballet, returning to her room before he returns home, where she reads from whatever book she's snuck out of the library that her father had sent Francis many years ago. Only on days where the maid visits does she stay in her room, or sneak into the library to peak at the portfolios on the bottom shelves. Letters, each one contains dozens of letters and each one contains them from different countries: an Arthur Kirkland and Alfred Jones, who must be English-speaking nations; someone named Mathieu who writes in French; a Berwald with very sharp, elegant letters; Feliciano, who she thinks might be Italian, and Antonio, who could be Spanish; seven portfolios from her father, in a mixture of Russian and French; and one portfolio in the hand that taught Anya to write.

The dates between the letters have big gaps of time, and Anya can seemingly find no rhyme or reason to when or why her mother sent Francis letters, doesn't know enough of the history to put all the years together: 1763, 1794, 1848, 1867, then dozens upon dozens from 1917 on. The one from the 1930's and 1940's are shorter, seemingly in code, ending suddenly in 1945 with one she wishes she'd never read:

"Please, Francis, I'm begging you, talk to him! You know what the Red Army is capable of, tell Braginski to stop what Russia is about to do to Hungary or I will stop him myself with a bullet, my women don't deserve being treated like this! I'm begging you, don't let them do this to us, don't let him do this to me! I don't want to be his prisoner Francis, I hate him and he hates me and one of us will die. Please, Ferkó, save me!"

Anya cries all night, forsaking the book from her father.

* * *

A few days later she's dancing in the studio again, the sun shining through the window. She's getting hungry; maybe she'll sneak downstairs and get something to eat for lunch when she's finished this routine.

Spinning, turning her head quickly to keep from getting dizzy, Anya barely registers that the door is open now. "Bravo!" a familiar voice says, and she almost trips in surprise. Strong arms catch her, Anya's back making contact with Francis's chest as his arms encircle her, holding her upright. "Just like your father," the Frenchman chuckles, "lost in the ballet."

Instinctively she pushes away from him, falling to the floor. Her knees slam into the hard ground, Francis staying still behind her. Anya breathes deeply, trying to calm her heart, before she rolls over to look at him. His blue eyes look sad, that same defeat she feels in her heart and her father had tried to hide from her: it's like she's looking at his soul.

"Anastasiya," he sighs gracefully, trying to smile, but his mouth does it all wrong and he still looks pitiful.

And that breaks something in Anya, something that had been holding her back. She knows they picked Francis for a reason, she knows that despite the Frenchman having never been mentioned by name before to her, that her parents both trust him. That her father used to send him letters for years, books, old photographs, from as far back as the library's records go until 1948. That her mother would reach out to him at times of need, that between the wars she wrote more and more to him, that she begged him to stop some great impending catastrophe her father's nation was about to unleash on her people, to stop her from becoming his prisoner as she is now. That they trust him and that Anya should trusts him too because there are so many things they never said because they never could, and Francis is trying his best.

She stutters over the sound, her voice unused for so many days. Coughing Anya finally manages, "Francis?" in a weak voice, her eyes dropped to the ground again because she doesn't think she can look in those deep blue eyes any longer.

"Yes Anastasiya?"

"Wou-" There's a lump in her throat but she pushes through. Her parents have gone through unspeakable things; she can do this. "Would you like to dance with me?"

Silence gives way to a light chuckle, a hand being held out before her. Anya takes it, rising with Francis's help, and without speaking a word she lets herself be guided.

It's a French dance, one that she's seen but never danced herself before. The man guides her and Anya thinks it's nice to have a partner who is neither her too-tall, too-clumsy father that she adores, nor a famous ballerina. She had liked when the ballerinas would visit, traveling through, stopping at the dance studio in town and waiting for her father to come out to visit them. Having never gone to a real school, always going into town with her protective father, Anya knows she is sheltered and has an unrealistic view of men.

But with Francis it's real, the man shorter than her father and thus closer to her height, fuller in his figure than the ballerinas were. He twirls her, holds her, catches her, until they finish the dance, bowing to each other.

Then Francis pulls her into a hug, and Anya buries her face in his chest and cries the last of her tears.

* * *

She's no doubt it's the best school in Paris that money can buy. Francis has the driver drive them there together, and Anya is so convinced everyone will hate her for that until they arrive at the school and see all the other drivers dropping off students. In their uniforms the teenagers move with ease, calling out to each other; they've all gone to school for years. For Anya this is Day One.

He walks her in, an arm around her waist. Two months they'd spent bonding so far; had it really only been that long? She'd left Hungary in June; it was now September. A month wasted in self-pity, then two months spent in pleasure.

Anya's grateful Francis is the one her parents picked. He's funny, Anya's discovered, with a sense of humor that she imagines her father's always appreciated and her mother used to roll her eyes at. And he's calm when it comes to various languages, pausing before speaking, his words clear, perfected. Their new schedule involves them having breakfast together, Francis making the food, Anya making the tea the way Irina taught her, Russian-style. Before leaving for work Francis would leave things for Anya to do: books to work through, to make sure she was ready for school; French literature to read so that she can discuss something beyond Russian tomes; TV shows to watch, with snippets of information about what has happened west of the Iron Curtain since 1945; and catalogs to pick things from. Some of them are for performances, upcoming ballets and operas, others for clothing, furniture for her bedroom: personal things for this new home they're making together.

She's learned a lot about herself that way, spending Francis's money. She likes trashy Swedish pop, for instance, and The Beatles. Though she doesn't exactly understand avant garde French fashion, Anya does like scarves and tight pants in fun colors, but also pencil skirts and cardigans and old fashion clothing that makes Francis laugh that she looks like an old man in her suspenders and bow tie. And she likes Chinese food and Mars Bars and watching American news and Monty Python.

By the time they're walking down the hallway of her first school, Anya has learned so much about herself, about Francis, about the world. Her French is faster now and she's grateful for that, because she has no trouble when they sit down with the director of the school, an older-looking headmaster with graying hair and a funny mustache. She can handle this.

* * *

In her first class Anya sits one row in from the window, three rows back from the front. It's a non-assuming seat in a non-assuming course, European History in the 19th Century, something she's been working on with Francis so that she wouldn't have to struggle through the material. She knows about Sweden losing Finland to Russia and taking Norway from Denmark. She knows about the Napoleonic Wars, about her mother marrying, about the Industrial Revolution. She can handle this.

No one talks to her, everyone ignoring her as they filter in. One boy does smile as he walks by, sitting behind her, but Anya's starting to feel a little less optimistic about this than before. She only has to make it to the end of the day, she reminds herself, when the driver will pick her up and take her to Francis's office. And making friends takes time, and Anya's never done it before, but Francis has assured her that she'll be fine. His secretary likes her, and so does the young man who brings him coffee, and the two old men who work the security desk. She can handle this.

When class starts the teacher calls roll, skipping Anya, though she does nod once towards the Russian. Finished she makes her announcement.

"Everyone, we have a new student this year. Why don't you stand and introduce yourself to us Miss?"

She tries her best to be graceful, fixing the skirt of her uniform. "Um, hello everyone," she says in the sort of French she's been mimicking from Francis.

"Why don't you tell us your name and…." The teacher's voice trails off as she looks at her notes before saying, "and what you're enjoying the most about Paris?" She was going to say, "where you're from," Anya knows, but she caught herself. Francis had made sure it would be a non-issue.

"Ok. My name is Anastasiya Braginski and I think for what I'm enjoying the most-" She lets a pause come before she starts to voice her answer, but in that moment a boy from the back yells something that makes the class laugh.

Immediately her face burns. She can handle this, she can handle this.

"Excuse me," the teacher starts, annoyed, and immediately her stern side comes out. "What did you just say?"

"I said," the boy starts, leaning forward in his desk as his eyes move from the teacher to Anya, a sound to his voice that sets her on edge, "why doesn't the commie go back to her Soviet bastard family? Or is family outlawed there too, you little freak? Go back to Stalin-land, whore!"

Laughter, everywhere. The boy keeps going, his voice becoming more and more like a child's whine as he mocks her, the teacher moving to stand before him, but now the other students are shouting things too.

And like that Anya decides she's done, throwing the few things she had placed on her desk back in her bag and grabbing her coat. There's resistance as she tries to pull it up and she realizes it's because she's slammed the back of her chair into the boy behind her's desk. She barely registers that he's not saying anything, just staring at her in shock, so she tells him to go fuck himself in Hungarian and flees the room.

* * *

"Hello?" Francis answers immediately, because she'd called him directly.

Anya's only response is to break down and cry even harder.

"Anastasiya what happened?" He's gone into panic mode, she can tell over the phone. There are still a lot of things she doesn't understand about Francis, like why he brings so many women (and men) home for sex, or why he spends so much time cooking when he works such long hours. But she had known he would respond if she called him, that he would drop everything for her, and right now the pain is all too much to care about the rest of the world.

Anya isn't even that aware of what she's crying into the receiver, a weird mixture of French and Russian with Hungarian and German swears, about how they all hate her for being from the Soviet Union and how she hates school and why can't she just go home to Mama and Papa, please?

"Give me," and there's the sound of papers being shuffled, drawers thrown open and closed. Anya can hear Francis snapping his fingers, the secretary in the background saying something in reaction to seeing his panic. "Give me ten minutes Anya, twenty tops, and I'll come get you. Where are you?"

"At the phone… across the street… from school…," she manages, hiccuping.

"Stay there!" Francis orders her. "Stay right there and I'll come get you. Those mother fuckers!" he yells and that makes her laugh a little because he normally tries so hard not curse in front of her, and clearly that last bit had been said after he'd thought he'd hung up the phone already. She feels delirious.

* * *

There's massive amounts of traffic and so Anya forgives Francis when he doesn't get there in ten minutes; she's very much aware that forty minutes is more accurate, depending on how crazy of a driver he is today.

She's swinging her legs on the bench, her face buried in her bag held tightly to her chest, when someone sits beside her. "Hello," a boy says cheerfully, "I hope you are feeling better." She scoots away from him before realizing he'd spoken in Hungarian. At that her head snaps up, looking at him. Blinking Anya registers that this was the boy who'd sat behind her, that smiled when he came in and that she cursed at in Hungarian on the way out.

Hungarian.

"You speak Hungarian." It's a demand more than anything else; she learned speaking like that from her father.

"Not that well," he concedes. "My mother is Hungarian, but my father is German and so we speak German at home."

Anya nods. "We used to speak Russian at home. My mother said Hungarian was for special occasions only." That makes the boy laugh.

"I'm Raphael, by the way," the boys says, extending a hand for her to shake. "Raphael Viktor Simon. You're Anastasiya, right?"

Taking his hand Anya shakes it once firmly before drawing her hand back immediately and holding her bag tight. She nods to Raphael, her mind whirling with questions as to why he's here instead of in the classroom, why he'd smiled at her, why he didn't taunt her even after she cursed him out.

"What's your patronym?" Raphael asks. That throws her for a second, because she knows the French often use patronyme to mean nom de famille, surname. So she shakes her head and Raphael squints, trying to think of a better way to ask his question. "A- a- hell, what's it called in Russian? I know this," he says, slapping one hand against his forehead. "I know this, I know this- ah! О́тчество!" he blurts out, and Anya gets it.

"Oh, my patronym!"

"Yeah," he says, his face blank, "that's what I said." And his face is so funny that Anya cannot help but laugh despite the misery she had felt in the classroom and the pity she's been wallowing in waiting for Francis to come get her.

"Sorry," she chuckles because he looks so irritated and right now she needs a friend, "my French is not yet perfect. Ivanovna. Anastasiya Ivanovna Braginski."

"Which means," Raphael starts, "that you're father is Ivan Braginski, right?"

Francis had said you only needed basic Russian to figure out who her father was. "Yeah," Anya says, getting defensive. "What about it?"

"Good Russian name, Ivan," Raphael states, this time it his turn to laugh. "Sorry, I find Russia fascinating. My parents had to leave Budapest after 1956-"

"The Revolution," Anya interrupts. Her mother had refused to tell her what had happened when the Hungarians rebelled; it had been her father to say how they'd tried to beat her, tried to make him hurt her, but that he'd stopped them. There had been a pride there she couldn't quite believe but Uncle Gil had confirmed his words and that gave Anya at least something to be proud of.

"Yeah, I'm sure that's… different, on the other side of the divide," Raphael says slowly. Anya can only nod, watching her feet swing. "So... my parents came to Paris and now we live here! What about your parents?"

"I was smuggled out alone," Anya admits as a blue car pulls up suddenly, Francis hoping out. Forgetting Raphael she runs into her protector's arms.

* * *

"I gave you good money on the promise that she would not be mocked!" Francis screams, standing with his hands on the director's desk. The man sits there, taking it. "You promised me she would be treated well and yet less than an hour later I'm getting a call with her crying that they've already called her foul things! You idiot! I'll take all my money and my ward back then!"

Anya sits, her head down, and lets Francis rail. It makes her feel better, to know he's so protective of her, just like how her father always was. She does not envy the director.

When he's finally done yelling after twenty-seven minutes, the French nation throws himself into his chair. "You know the truth," he whispers to the director, "and I trusted you with that. Always have."

"I know Francis," and the director speaks in such a familiar way Anya wasn't expecting. "And I am sorry Miss Braginski," he says directly to her. When she looks confused he smiles sadly. "I was in the military with Francis, during The Second War; I've met your father. I liked him," he shrugs, looking at Francis.

"Most people don't," the nation observes. Anya nods without thinking.

* * *

In the hallway they stop, Francis holding Anya close and whispering in her ear. "I picked here because I know the director, and I knew money could do the most to help you. But it was a high-hope of your parents' that this would be smooth. Perhaps it is best if I just get you more tutors, you are well ahead in your studies anyway-"

"I want to stay," Anya stays suddenly. Francis freezes, looking at her.

"Are you sure? You were very upset. You do not have to, for them."

"I know," she says, closing her eyes. "I know. But that's what happens when your parents are my parents and you're from behind the Iron Curtain, isn't it?"

"You are right, of course," he sighs, kissing her forehead. "But for today we have had enough excitement, and my secretary is very worried for you. Come come, I have some documents you can help me translate while we eat lunch."

On the way out Anya sees Raphael in the hall. He smiles, waving, and so Anya waves back.


	2. 1981

**Аня: and I, a thousand less one**

1981.

Francis mutters something, toast in his teeth, as he tries to scoop up more papers in one hand, coffee in the other. Anya laughs, knows it's some attempt at, "I love you," in some language, so she just kisses his nose and follows him to the door where she locks it behind him as he sets off for work.

Life has become… stable. Not yet completely normal, but almost. Anya has a room full of personal touches, a growing collection of items she's picked up on trips with Francis to different events in Paris on the weekend, or from days where she skips school and he skips work and they drive out to the coast and just lay in the sand, watching clouds pass by. He's taken to calling her Anya; she's gotten better at pronouncing Francis. There's routine.

Like the fact that Francis's secretary is occasionally the one being brought home for sexy time, the only companion that the nation ever allows to stop and talk with Anya because they like each other. Normally when he comes back on Saturday nights with his date they go straight upstairs to avoid the young Russian. She knows he means well, that he does it because he doesn't want to make Anya suffer all his bedmates, that they aren't important and so not worth Francis introducing them to his precious ward, but she doesn't care. Anya enjoys sitting on the small balcony on nights like those. In the background she can hear the soft sounds of love making, of visitors screaming Francis's name and of Francis never specifying his lovers', always pet names instead; she called him out on that once and he'd simply laughed. Most of the lovers are gone by breakfast, except for the secretary who's allowed to stay as late as she'd like on Sundays.

But it doesn't bother her, to hear them. It's not like she tries purposely to listen but there's a rhythm to it, a normality that Anya's not used to yet. One night Francis had come out to sit with her on the balcony, asked if she was ok while his bed was being kept warm by another.

When she was little, she had explained, sometimes she would go sit outside her parents' door. She never went in, just listened, and for the longest time she didn't understand what she was listening to. It wasn't until she came to France, and there was that awkward class after Halloween where Raphael had realized Anya didn't know what sex was, that she put two and two together.

It hadn't been the love making that she listened for but rather the tears that came after, the tears of her mother and maybe, sometimes, her father. More nights than not there had been be tears and whispers of, "I love you," that Anya had collected. She had found the thought of her parents like that fascinating, comforting in its own way. It'd made them human before she learned the truth.

And that's why she doesn't mind listening, because sex reminds her of her parents, because sex is something literally unspoken of for the first seventeen years of Anya's life, because Francis told her sex was not something shameful and so they speak openly about it, like coffee and fashion. Sex is human.

She'd had the letter in her hands that night where he'd joined her on the balcony; she always does when she sits out there. As she makes her way upstairs now, the snow having cancelled school but Francis still needed at the office, she gets the letter from where she'd left it in the library for just one more reading.

Not a day goes by Anya doesn't miss her mother and father. Around the time of her birthday she'd grown quiet until she was woken on December 25th to Francis laying beside her in bed, a grin on his face and a letter from her mother in his hand. She'd cried after reading her mother's warm words from home before they had hot chocolate and exchanged gifts for Anya's first Christmas. Not that she hadn't been given gifts on that day before; her father had always loaded her with gifts on the 25th for her birthday. And it'd always been a white Christmas out in Russia, just like it had been that 17th birthday a few months earlier.

The snow had really made it, Francis holding her in his arms while they sat before a roaring fire, like Papa used to hold her and Mama. What had caught her off guard was Francis asking if she wanted to go to church for mass after lunch. She had stared at him for several minutes before the French nation blinked, asking if she knew what mass was.

Yes! she had exclaimed, annoyed, and she was baptized too, Roman Catholic. That had made the man quirk an eyebrow, surprised her father had pulled that off somehow. But then he had mused aloud that he would have done that for Erzsi, and coming from an atheist country Anya probably hadn't been to a full church mass before; they could always save that for Easter. The Russian Orthodoxes had their ways of doing things, and the French Catholics had theirs.

As Anya goes back into her room, dreamily remembering her 15th birthday in Soviet Russia and the cake Aunt Irina had made and the mess Uncle Gil had made of it, Toris taking the brunt of the frosting to his lap while Feliks howled with laughter, the phone rings.

"Bonjour, Bonnefoy residence, may I ask who is calling?" Anya recites the words automatically, the ones everyone but Francis must use in case it is a state call. The Hungarian that follows tells her it isn't.

"Hey, Anya, what's up?"

"Oh hey Vitya," she sighs, leaning against the wall. Raphael Simon is her lone true friend at school; he calls her Anya, which was never the right Russian diminutive for Anastasiya, and so she calls him Vitya, the very proper Russian diminutive for his German-Hungarian middle name of Viktor. As she got used to the rhythm of school others started talking to her, the children of other European immigrants, the ones with roots tracing back to behind the Iron Curtain. There are a couple of English-born Russians in the school; Anya was welcomed immediately into their group, though they judge her harshly for speaking in Hungarian with Vitya instead of teaching him Russian. And while she may not know a lot about friendship, she recognizes that Vitya is a good friend. "Nothing much, Francis has work today and I'm stuck at home all alone."

"Really?" There's a mixture of surprise and longing there that confuses Anya before Vitya continues speaking normally. "You got any plans then?"

"Nope!" she says happily, pulling the phone cord around the corner with her to fix her fringe above her eyes in the mirror. She has to give it to Francis, he buys very good, very expensive shampoo. "I was thinking about watching old American movies and working on my English. You?"

A moment's hesitation before, "I have socks to fold."

"You lead an exciting life Vitya," Anya chuckles.

"Do you… I mean, do you mind if I come over and keep you company?" Vitya's come over before, walked her back from school when the weather was nice, come by to study for an exam with her while Francis busied himself in his office. Francis likes him; it took a while for him to get it but now he does, appreciates in Vitya what Anya appreciates: Vitya doesn't think anything of her origins.

She smiles into the phone, looking into her own emerald green eyes reflected back in the mirror. "I'd love that," she sighs, her heart skipping a beat. In Russia she only had the other countries for company, could never be alone. Here, in France, there are so many possibilities and Anya intends on picking them all.

* * *

"Metro is crazy today," Vitya bitches as he steps into the front entryway, shaking off the last of the snow. Anya locks the door behind him, already wearing her "polite company" pajamas as Francis had put them with the sweatshirt they had bought her in Monaco when visiting his sister. "I count myself lucky to have survived getting here."

"My hero," she laughs, taking his coat and hat and hanging them beside Francis's in the closet. "Now take off your boots and get in here, I'll make us tea."

* * *

On the couch they're on their third American movie, candy and tea and hot chocolate everywhere. By this point Anya's legs are thrown over Vitya's lap, her head on his shoulder and one of his arms around her.

It's nice, like this, she thinks. She feels a contentment when she's with Vitya that she's never felt with another… mortal. Only the other countries, her family, Francis, only they've ever given her this feeling.

"I'm going to make him an offer," Vitya says in imitation of Marlon Brando's accent, "he can't refuse." He's finally gotten down the hand gesture, looking proudly at Anya. He might have studied English longer but she has an easier time imitating the accents as they watch their movies.

"Vitya?" She puts her tea on the table, sitting up to run a hand over his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in the crook. His whole body seems to stiffen in surprise, unsure of what to do.

"Y-y-yeah Anya?" The Godfather forgotten, he awkwardly places his arms around her, pulling her to his chest. Anya inhales deeply, the smell of old books and chocolate and something vaguely German that always lingered on Gil too.

Her heart is racing in her chest. One hand falls down to his chest to feel his heart, which is beating just as quickly. That makes her smile against his skin.

"Hey Anya?"

"Yeah Vitya?"

"Can I kiss you?"

The only ones who kissed back in Russia were her parents, and here Francis gives his normal greeting kisses but romantic ones are always saved for behind closed doors. Breathing deeply, Anya makes up her mind.

"Anya-" Lips press into his tenderly, unsure of what to do. It's awkward, both teenagers unsure of what comes next, yet that melts away as they keep going, mouthes moving against each other, because with Vitya Anya feels safe; he's her friend, her explainer, her translator of foreign ideas. And she's his rock, his buoy, his connection to his family's roots. Francis likes Vitya and his parents like Anya.

Then her mind drifts to her own parents far away, and the thought of them never meeting Vitya makes her throat feel tight, breaking her first kiss. Her eyes are still closed when she sheds a single tear at the thought of her father, devastated, losing her to another man. Vitya runs a hand over her cheek before pulling her to his chest.

"It's ok Anya, ma petite Russe; ssh, don't cry."

The moment is beautiful and the thought of never sharing it with her parents breaks her heart.

* * *

By the time Francis gets home Vitya is gone, having kissed her forehead at the door and whispering that they would talk tomorrow at school.

"Someone had a good day," the French nation comments as he finds Anya laying on the couch, the mess still hanging about. He sits so that her head lays in his lap. "Did I miss anything?"

"I kissed Vitya," she mumbles in Russian. Silence meets the statement.

Looking up Francis's eyes are wide, incredulous, as he takes her in. Then they turn to happiness and laughter. "The skinny German bugger?"

"He's my skinny German bugger," Anya complains, "watch yourself France."

"Do you- oh my God Anya," he chuckles, "give me a moment. Ok. Alright. Do you even like him? You hadn't said anything."

The Russian shrugs. "I don't know. I feel safe with him; I've never felt that with someone my own age before, but- Gah!" She throws herself on Francis, his arms instinctively pulling her to his chest. "I'm so confused Francis!"

"It's ok sunflower, it's ok," he murmurs into her hair, stroking it. "We'll work through this, don't worry. And if he breaks your heart," Francis adds in a joking tone, "your father did give me permission to shoot him."

"When I'm with Vitya," she whispers and Francis stills at that, holding her tightly. They can both sense that this is one of the moments where a secret fear is revealed, bared for all the world to see, and that they must give this moment the respect it deserves. "Francis, when I'm with him I feel like I'm home, but then I think of Papa and Mama and the idea that they'll never be here, never meet him, never approve of him and see me happy with him-"

Hands pull her to his chest and she can no longer speak, the tears welling up as she pulls at her protector's sweater. They stay like that for a long time before Anya looks up, ready for whatever wisdom Francis will try to impart on her.

His smile is sad, fingers grazing her cheek. "I wish I could say that that is a silly worry from a silly girl," he sighs, "but we both know that it isn't. Anya," and she nods at the sound of her name, "your parents both knew that by sending you here you'd live a life they could never share in. They wouldn't want to you to hold yourself back for them; they sent you here to live Anya, risked everything doing it, and you have to live that life they've given you. Without them, but for them."

* * *

Francis's birthday ends with a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower, waiting for fireworks. "Are we saying you're still 24 then Francis?" Anya asks as they sit on a boat on the river.

"Actually I had thought about letting myself now be 25," he says haughtily, a hand to his chest, the other arm around his companion's waist. "I am a legal parent now, after all." The papers had been finalized in the spring giving Francis full legal authority over Anya.

"It's a very mature age," the Russian laughs, nodding her head but unable to keep a serious face.

"What's a mature age?" someone barks in English from behind Francis. The French nation smiles, standing to greet two men in heavily accented English.

The first, the one who had spoken, is wearing a deep forest green suit with brown shoes, his hands shoved into his pockets as Francis kisses his cheeks. His hair is a different blond than the French nation's, though not so different from the other man's. In a bomber jacket and jeans the second man stands slightly taller than the other two, a youthfulness to his face that Anya likes.

Turning, Francis holds out a hand for Anya that she takes, standing and preparing to make the best first impression she can. "Dearest," Francis coos in beautiful French that makes the first one cringe and the second snort, "these are my, shall we say, friends?"

"Acquaintances," the first man insists.

"Friends, aw yeah!" the second one shouts.

Francis purses his lips in annoyance before sighing, returning to his suave demeanor. "These are my English-speakers," he settles on.

"Are you by any chance," Anya starts in slow English, her mind working through the little hints at Francis's life she's gathered, "Arthur Kirkland and Alfred Jones?"

All three men stare at her.

"What?" she asks indignantly.

"Does she know?" the first man whispers. "Francis!"

"I-," her protector starts, turning from him to her. Something in Anya feels guilty for putting Francis in this situation, one she obviously shouldn't have.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes to Francis, a hand on his arm. He smiles sweetly at her, patting the hand. "It's just I know the names, from the letters, and so-"

"What letters‽" She's decided this one is the most annoying; at least the taller blond is pleasurably quiet.

"Smart girl," Francis says. "But yes, this one is Arthur Kirkland," and he gestures to the agitated man. When she looks at Francis with big eyes, sensing he's holding something back, he adds simple enough, "England."

"Don't tell her that!" Kirkland slaps Francis's head.

"Nonsense dearest-"

"Not your dearest!"

"My little ward knows who I am. This is Héderváry's daughter," and he pinches her cheek. "She's quite trustworthy you see." A quick half-truth, just like they'd practiced for these circumstances. Kirkland still seems to have his doubts though, taking in the girl. He nods once as his green eyes meet hers, sighing.

"This is my brother," he mumbles, gesturing to Jones.

"Nice to meet you!" the young man says, holding out a hand. As she shakes it he leans in, grinning. "America!" he mouths and Anya drops his hand. A French arm comes around her shoulder supportively. "Good to see you on this side of the curtain," he says ignorantly. "Bet you're glad to have gotten away from that asshole Braginski." A hand slaps the back of his head. "Hey!"

"Al, I swear to God," Kirkland starts in, but Anya tunes out the rest of the conversation, looking up at Francis watching her with sympathetic pity.

* * *

She's leaning against the rail of the boat, Francis beside her, when someone offers her a glass of champagne. Smiling once at the new arrival the French nation kisses Anya's cheek before leaving her with the Englishman.

"I am sorry," he says, his eyes once more meeting hers, "for what my brother said. He can be a right fool most of the time."

"That is quite alright Sir." Anya sips at the sparkling wine. "He said nothing new to my ears; his words caused no great offense."

"Young ladies," Kirkland starts, his gaze falling back over the Seine and sites they were sailing past, "should not have to listen to such things spoken about their fathers."

The funny thing is, she doesn't react to his words. Something in her had known all along, when he met her gaze, that nod he gave her, as if he was silently saying he had seen through it all all along. The nose and eyes were her mother's, but the coloring and chin were all the Russian nation, more subtle but there.

"I knew your father," the Brit continues in his hushed tone, "or at least I thought I had. There was always something in the air between us, prevented us from getting along the way Francis and him always had. And your mother, I never knew her as well; Francis seemed to have a sweet spot for her. I used to chalk that up to her being a woman, and Francis being…" His voice trails off.

"Francis?" Anya offers brightly. The other man smiles.

"You've noticed. I think there was more there, a deeper understanding. Your mother," he says as if this is a piece of wisdom arrived at after many years, "is a strong woman; for all her faults perhaps her greatest is that she does not see that strength in herself. Edelstein had tried to show her but in the end…." He shrugs.

"Believe me Sir," Anya sighs, "I know how that story ends."

Kirkland laughs lightly, shaking his head. "No no," he insists. Watching him Anya starts to notice little things: the way he holds his wine glass is relaxed; his clothes, while not fashionable per say, are impeccable in their cut and color; he understands Francis's rapid French and when he responds, always in English, there's a slight French accent that creeps in. He looks as if he belongs in Paris. "No, Miss, that is not how the story ends, just that particular chapter in the tale."

* * *

Part of her should be surprised, but it's not the part functioning that early in the morning as Anya treads into the kitchen to find a very disheveled-looking Arthur Kirkland in boxers and Francis's sweater, hair standing on end and thick black plastic glasses on his face, staring at something.

"What's up?" Anya asks brightly in the best English she can, getting out a yogurt and spoon.

"Tea," the Englishman says. "That-" and he points at the samovar "-is for tea."

She nods, spoon in her mouth; he never bothers to look at her, his eyes too transfixed on the gift from Francis for getting perfect marks in her required basic Russian course in school. "What about it?"

"Tea," Kirkland repeats again, still incredulous as if he can not believe his eyes. "For years that bastard has forbidden me from having tea in the house, and now there's- there's- there's this!"

The Russian shrugs, exiting. "Maybe he doesn't love you as much as me," she calls over her shoulder, "even if you two are fucking." She smiles at the sound of his indignant calls to the contrary.

* * *

"Complicated is a math problem Anya," Vitya murmurs, staring at his hands on the table. "We've moved beyond complicated."

"I know, Vitya," she sighs, smoothing out the skirt of her dress once more, "I know." The day is beautiful in Paris, the sun warm, the wind gone; they sit on the balcony with their teas and treats.

"It's just so…." The German trails off looking for the right word, leaning back, closing his eyes; Anya's mind immediately remembers at least three times her father had done the same thing. "Nothing," Vitya finally admits, "I got nothing."

"No, Vitya," she sighs. "We have everything. They have nothing."

There's a long silence as her eyes sweep over the street below, old women yelling at their husbands for watching younger women walk by. A hand slips into hers, giving it a squeeze. "I won't pretend to understand," Vitya says softly, "what that life was like, or how hard it was to leave. I know your parents are important to you, even if we rarely speak about them. But please, Anya," and his lips brush her cheek, his free hand holding her other cheek. Her eyes come up to meet his blue caring ones. "You have to let me in. I want to help."

"It's just that I…." She looks at his face, soft, loving, and knows she can confess everything but at the same time can't. Something in her keeps holding her back, in school, in making friends, in being truthful with Vitya. Francis had told her she'd come to see her acquaintances in two groups: those who could know the truth, and those who could never be told.

"When you're ready ma biche," Vitya says as graciously as ever. "But we can both agree it's complicated right?"

"Oh yes," she laughs, kissing his lips, "it's complicated."

* * *

In September Anya sits in a desk beside the window, Vitya on her other side. Her face is to the window, the sun warm, when he asks, "You a sunflower now?" She laughs quietly as students file into the classroom.

"At home," she whispers, "when Papa was overworked, we would go walking in fields of them. They turn their faces to the sun; it's amazing to watch Vitya."

"Yeah, you are." Eyes closed she smiles, holding hands with her only friend.

* * *

After class he carries her books, like always, Anya's arms holding one of his, like always. She smiles and nods at the children of rich immigrants, shares quick words with the Russian speakers. Vitya smiles politely all throughout the day, like always. A pattern emerges at school to suit them, together.

And when she returns home with a smile Francis looks up from his desk and asks, "Happy I see?"

Throwing herself in the chair, her eyes drift back out the window. "It's like I'm finally living the life I was always meant to live." Her mouth still tingles from where Vitya's lips had been not too long ago.


	3. 1982

Author's note: I now have a matching FictionPress account (coeurgryffondor there too) where I started posting my novel and some of my original shorts. You guys should check it out but first, more Anya and Francis.

* * *

**Аня: and I, a thousand less one**

1982.

Manon leads Anya into Francis's office, swinging her hips in that way she always does when around her boss. "Oh Francis, stop it, stop it!" she says in a light voice, swatting at his hands and pushing him from his desk. Rolling his chair back Francis pulls Manon to his lap, hiding his face in her shoulder.

"Why did you ever get me this piece of witchcraft?" he moans to his beautiful secretary.

"Come now Francis, Anya will fix it, won't you dear?"

Laughing Anya places herself before the computer's keyboard. "Technology not agreeing with you again?"

"I asked for an apple, not an Apple." The women laugh.

* * *

For the second summer in a row Anya works in Francis's office, a small but surprisingly efficient space in one of Paris's many governmental buildings. She loves every minute of it.

Manon, Francis's sweet and sexy secretary, has become the French nation's go-to for dealing with "women's issues" in Anya's life. She's slim and fashionable and graceful but also smart and quick witted, perfect for a man like Francis to go head-to-head with. Anya now considers her as her second human friend, the thirty-year-old the best she can come to have as a stand-in mother.

Clément, in contrast to Manon, tends to lose his head when he comes in for work. Anya's not quite sure what the twenty-year-old's purpose is beyond bringing Francis outrageous coffees and lunches and running between the various departments of the French government. But he's funny and youthful, the same way Anya is, discussing university-related studies with her whenever he collapses in Manon's chair and maybe, just maybe, that's what his purpose is.

Though she sees them less, Jules and Maxime make entering and leaving the building a joy, the older security guards teasing her in that wonderful way elderly French gentlemen come to possess. Today it had been about how skinny Anya was; yesterday it had been the perfection to her French pronunciation.

Back out by Manon's desk Anya finds the file she had been trying to translate, bringing it to the second desk to work on. "Hey Anya?" Manon asks.

"Ouais?"

"Is Raphael coming in today?" The secretary is flipping through her files, trying to find something in the inbox. "I technically need two native-German speakers to translate something that I've apparently lost, and it'd probably just be easier and faster if you two did it."

Flipping to where she had been in her Russian-French translation for Francis, Anya tries to recall what Vitya had said his family was doing. "Not sure, his father had said they might be going to West Germany but I don't think even Vitya knew how long they'd be gone."

"Poor boy," Manon sighs, sitting daintily. "I remember when my father would take us on road trips."

"Where to?"

"Hell," she says with a straight, pained face.

* * *

That night Francis answers the phone first, calling up the stairs for Anya to pick up in the library. "Hello?" she starts, unsure of who would be on the other end.

"Hey ma biche," a familiar voice says suavely.

"Why hello hello. Fluent in the language yet?" Vitya laughs at the question.

"Good one girly. At least my German's back to where it once was."

Plopping into Francis's chair Anya smiles. "Still in West Berlin?"

An anxious sigh. "Yeah, it's kind of awful here." That piques her interest.

"Why?"

"I can hear them," he groans in a low voice, the sound of shifting on the other side. "I see that wall or catch a glimpse when Vati crosses into East Berlin and says goodbye to me at the checkpoint. I-" Vitya stutters, taking a deep breath. "They're alive," he finally settles on, "this is their life, they live it and they're alive and I've never thought so much about what it's like to be on one side of this divide or the other, what it really means and how they're real people too. Anya," he sighs, "I don't know that I'll ever fully understand what that life was like but I respect you so much more now for-"

"Don't," she chides. "I got away, remember? I escaped." A gift from the mighty Soviet Russia; the irony is not lost on her.

"This war is stupid," Vitya complains.

"Aren't all?" Anya laughs bitterly.

* * *

Manon dances as she files away papers at the end of the day, her pencil skirt pulling with each move of her legs. Her voice drifts softly through the office, everyone quiet to hear her song. Clément throws out the day's garbage before sitting at the second desk, putting his head down and closing his eyes, pulling his Game & Watch from his pocket. Francis, at his desk, is visible through the open door into his office as he piles his papers up for Monday.

And Anya decides she could get used to this, to translating, to being treated like an equal, to Manon's kindness and Clément's goofiness and Francis's love. She smiles in that knowledge as Francis comes out to dance with Manon to silent music only they can hear, work over for this week.

* * *

They're in the south of France visiting Francis's sister Camille when the news comes of further developments in the war in Lebanon. All summer so far they've watched from afar, Francis picking up the phone every once and a while to call the government for more information. Camille sits quietly as she watches, eating her dessert slowly as always. Anya tries to imitate the Monegasque composure while anxiously awaiting her protector's return from the other room. The news finishes before Francis comes back, kissing each woman on the cheek and heading out the back door to stand on the balcony.

He's resting on a wall that separates the house from the sheer cliff below, the Mediterranean sea a sparkling ocean of blue before them. Anya stands beside him, her head falling to his shoulder; his rests atop hers. "I hate war," he murmurs. "I hate wars so much. I always dream of running away from them, to here, to pretend that there is only peace with my sister. I've no stomach for war, too old to pretend to care for the bloodshed and stupidity of it all anymore."

An arm comes to encircle Anya, holding her to his chest tightly as lips kiss her forehead. "Tell- tell me, about the last one."

"Your parents?" the Frenchman inquires and looking up the Russian sees his eyes sparkling. "Is that your real question here sweetheart?"

Taking a deep breath Anya starts. "In your portfolio there was a note, from my mother, about my-"

Fingers find her lips, silencing her as Francis gazes down with a hopeless look. "About saving her from your father?" Anya nods. "Oh Anya, I'd hoped you wouldn't see that one. I should have burned it years ago."

"You didn't," she says defiantly, pulling his hand from her mouth, "and I did find it. Tell me what happened, tell me about my parents, please!"

A hand drags her to the nearest bench and the two sit with their backs to the water; Francis is quiet for several minutes before speaking. "You have to understand something before we begin: the man you call father, the Ivan Braginski you love, did not exist for several decades." Anya goes to interrupt but falls silent at the look her French protector gives her. "After the death of the tsar and his family, something in Vanya broke. He came to me and I watched him die on the inside, unable to do anything, and he emerged a radically changed man, threw himself into the Soviet ideals that were being proclaimed in his country. It was heartbreaking to watch while the first World War raged on, but I could do nothing. I thought I'd never see the man I called friend again, lost to his anger and sadness and all that was wrong with the world.

"And then," Francis chuckles bitterly, "your mother got her divorce. She never liked me, I was always Roderich Edelstein's enemy and thus hers as well. I truly believe she loved him, not many people could but she did. They worked well together on some level, her strength and his-" Francis casts about for a word before settling on some vague gesture in the air "-Austrian-ness, I don't know if someone could understand who has never met him. But I understood her love, I've ah… my heart has fallen prey to him as well, many centuries ago." He smiles. "Yet Erzsi loved him like no one else because she could see pass the ugliness. When they got their divorce, I think she lost herself.

"Being a female nation has never been easy," the man states. "Ask Camille and she can only begin to tell you tales, but your mother was the most powerful of all the women. I think with Roderich she gave up so much of herself for him that when suddenly he was gone and she was free to be her own person again, she didn't remember how to be. I'm not saying he's a bad guy, just like I'm not saying your father is either, but your mother is something special like the world's never seen. So I wrote her a letter, telling her as much, about how I admired her, about how I knew she didn't like me but hoped she would not mind my words, about how if she ever needed someone she should always feel free to call upon me.

"For years we exchanged letters until one weekend she showed up in Paris." Francis shrugs. "She needed love, I think, to remember that she was worth it."

"You had sex with my mother," Anya interrupts. Francis shakes his head, staring straight ahead.

"No; I made love to her. She has a passion that is unmatchable, I can see why powerful men like Roderich and Vanya become putty in her presence. I don't think we left my apartment at all, just laid about and spoke and loved and let that be that. The world was messed up and Germany was building, preparing, and I was so unready for that. Your mother used to- well," he smiles. "You saw the notes, she tried to help me, personally, in any way she could. She loves-" and he says it in the present, his eyes closed "-Ludwig like a son, and Gil and Roderich she loves just as much; I was, I suppose, someone worthy of her love and protection too." He smiles then, his body bouncing softly as he snorts silently. "I did never repay that debt, the one I should have when I got the letter about the Red Army approaching Budapest." At that he falls silent in thought.

When she can no longer wait Anya whispers, "Francis?" He shakes his head.

"I will not tell you what happened; it is too disgusting to recall." The nation's body shutters, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows. "I cannot reconcile what happened there with your father. Your mother was one of the lucky ones from what I heard, Roderich smuggled her out to Berlin at the last minute, for all the good that did. He still loves her," the Frenchman sighs. "I realize you've never met him but believe me, one does not simply stop loving your mother."

"Do you still love her?" the Russian asks quietly. Francis takes her in, one arm slung over the back of the bench. Behind them the sea laps against the beach; inside Camille turns the TV off, placing a record on the player. Finally the man smiles, one hand reaching out to cup the side of Anya's face. He leans forward, kissing the tip of her nose, her mother's nose, before pulling her tightly to his chest. His fingers spread across her back and shoulder, his strong arms holding her in an embrace that she understands is meant for another. The others used to tell her how much she looks like her father; Francis tells her how much she looks like her mother.

"I'm finally repaying my debt," he says into her hair in Hungarian.

* * *

It's a small meeting of several European Union nations, Anya sitting quietly at the edge of the room with other young people. Francis had explained that often times nations took on as interns the children of prominent people in their nations, that the ones she would be sitting with knew who the nations were. She, however, was the only child of any one nation, let alone two. Still unique.

When the meeting is adjourned Anya sits quietly, playing with Vitya's Pac-Man game watch he'd left at the house, casting glances at the French nation speaking with someone every few seconds. As Francis comes to collect her the man follows; her stand-in father turns her away from the man, and they leave.

Outside London is full of traffic, their regular driver pulling onto the road to start the journey to Arthur's house outside the city. The Frenchman watches her before she quirks an eyebrow.

"That was Ludwig Beilschmidt," he informs her; Anya nods.

"He has some of Uncle Gil's mannerisms in him." This time Francis nods.

"Not many people notice. I am sorry you are not allowed to meet him, but that is how it is."

"I understand."

"Good." The car makes a turn, Francis shifting to lay on the back seat.

"What are you doing?" Anya asks indignantly, laughing.

"Stay still," the man complains, "pillows shouldn't move that much." She doesn't miss his smile as they make another turn, his head in her lap.

* * *

She's come to like Earl Grey, the English nation's favorite beverage; the two of them sip at it while Francis lounges, drinking coffee. The day is warm, summer coming to a close soon.

"I am sorry the meetings are so boring," Arthur says to Anya. "So much time is wasted waiting for translations.

"That's quite alright," the Russian smiles. "I don't mind. Besides I enjoy seeing how the translations measure up to the originals."

"Do you understand all of it?" the man inquires.

"This is the Hungarian's daughter we're talking about," Francis interrupts. "You know how good her mother is with languages."

"Yeah but that's out of necessity," Arthur counters, "Hungarian isn't related to any other language."

"It's related to Finnish and Estonian!" Anya states proudly. Arthur just stares at her, Francis chuckling.

"Face it my roast beef," Francis says cheerfully, pinching Arthur's cheek, "this one was born to translate, it's in her blood."

* * *

Born to translate, the words echo in her mind the whole way back to Paris until the school year starts and Anya is once more constantly in Vitya's company.

Two weeks into classes and they're at lunch; on one end of the table the children of Russian immigrants to England, now living in Paris because it's the posh thing to do, discuss the finer points of Russian literature. Anya, who can't stand the conversation and knows somewhere her father must be cringing at the mistakes they make, speaks softly in Hungarian with Vitya.

He loves languages just as much as she does, though he cannot understand them nor switch between them at the speed Anya can. It's a gift, that's what Francis has taught her. Not everyone grows up in a house with so many languages being spoken, raised to see no problem in speaking so many.

"I've decided," Anya finally says. Vitya looks up from his sandwich, halfway to his mouth, to stare at her and wait for the rest of her thought. "On what I want to do with my life."

Placing the sandwich down he wipes his hands on a napkin. "Ok girly," he smiles, "tell me, what are you going to do?"

She smiles wide. "I want to be a translator." They sit for a minute before Vitya too smiles.

"I can see that. Who do you want to translate for? Francis?"

Anya shrugs. "Yeah I guess. I'd like to translate for the United Nations, though Francis has yet to bring me to a meeting." She knows it's because her father might be there, a man she loves and wants so much to see, to hold, but can't. And Vitya, he knows Francis works for the government, does something international, but he's yet to be let in on who the man is or what makes him special. Deep down though she's already decided that Vitya will be someone who knows the truth one day, just not yet.

"You'd have to officially study the languages and be certified I suppose," Vitya muses and Anya nods.

"I wouldn't mind that; I figure I can do French, Russian, Hungarian, German, and maybe English if I really tried."

"The Hungarian alone might make you valuable," her friend says. "Well, that would be if Hungary wasn't Sov- I shouldn't have said any of this really, that was stupid, I'll stop talking now." Anya laughs, taking his hands in hers.

"It's ok. One day Hungary will be free Vitya, I know it will be." Her mother had told her that, that they would see each other again and together they would go to a free Budapest, would enjoy it as mother and daughter, no longer prisoners.

"Well, whatever you decide Anya," and Vitya gives her hands a squeeze, "I will follow, wherever you go." And his smile is so wide, so genuine, that Anya truly forgets any heartbreak she has ever felt; in that moment of assurance she cannot doubt that Vitya would follow her to the ends of the earth willingly.


	4. 1983

**Аня: and I, a thousand less one**

1983.

They visit Arthur in the spring; the world is changing quickly this year.

Anya spends hours studying the various languages, disappointed with herself in how much she's lost while in France, how docile she's become without the constant changing of dialects and languages. But each night is spent with Vitya by her side, studying the history of Germany and France, occasionally quizzing her from her study guides between stolen kisses he shouldn't take. And when the library closes they return home, studying at the kitchen table with Francis wearing glasses and going through the rest of his work.

The solitary interruption to her studies Anya had allowed herself was when Klaus Barbie had been arrested, eventually charged with war crimes. She'd heard the news from a friend after class, hurrying to the office to find Manon delivering the news to the French nation. He had sat at his desk, staring at nothing, for nearly an hour after that; the Russian knows the news brought back memories of what the Butcher of Lyon had done, of WWII and all those things Francis can never forget. She had stayed in that night, holding her protector while waiting for Arthur to arrive. It had been awful, but they had made it through.

Now they visit the Brit in the Welsh countryside, Anya discussing the recent retirement of Björn Borg with him; from Arthur she's learned to love tennis, just as from Francis she learned to love football and from Vitya she learned to love curling. Arm in arm with Arthur, Francis following behind, Anya speaks in quiet English, heavy Russian accent, while they browse the shop windows. When they grow hungry they stop in to a restaurant to eat food none of them can easily pronounce, Francis teasing Arthur that his older brother would not be proud.

Back home Arthur picks up an article he'd received from one of his younger brothers, handing it to Anya as Francis stokes the fire. "I can see this being Francis one day," the Englishman says flatly. The article seems to be about a man charged with marrying 105 women.

"I don't know if Francis is prepared for that sort of commitment with one woman, let alone over one hundred," Anya jokes. Arthur snorts, throwing himself onto the couch as the French nation in question sits beside him.

"Ha ha, aren't we all so funny today?" There's a bitterness to his voice that Anya knows is because of something else, something deeper, something only Arthur can bring out. She very obviously leaves the room, subtly sneaking a look over her shoulder to see Arthur kissing Francis passionately, a hand sliding up under the French sweater.

* * *

She's glued to the front of the television, Vitya's hands on her arms, until Francis returns to the room. "They're fine," he sighs, Anya throwing herself on her protector. "They're fine," he repeats, this time in Russian. "They weren't there, someone got a hold of your father and heard it from his mouth. They're safe, they're fine."

When the next day the topic of discussion turns to nuclear power and the meltdown that had occurred in Soviet Russia Anya excuses herself, Vitya calming her fears when he finds her later. She hopes she never has to go through that again.

* * *

As a treat Francis brings Anya with him to the next major meeting, this one for the G7 nations. It's her first time in that feared enemy nation of the USSR, the United States of America.

They fly first to London, Arthur joining them for the cross-Atlantic flight. The ocean is huge, Anya's face glued to the window for so long as the two nations discuss their first times crossing it centuries earlier.

Before disembarking, Francis hands Anya a passport she will never quite feel right holding, the one fabricated her first day west of the Iron Curtain. Though it bears her legal name, Anastasiya Ivanovna Braginski, it says she is from Budapest and a citizen of France. With some awkwardness she hands her passport to the border patrol officer who asks for it, Arthur already through and Francis after her. The man blinks at the name, looking at her through narrowed eyes, before saying, "My grandmother was Hungarian. Welcome to the United States." He stamps the book, handing it back and moving on to Francis's passport.

Once they have their baggage Arthur is ambushed by someone Anya hasn't seen in years though she has heard so many conversations about him since their last meeting. "Look at you!" Alfred exclaims, taking in the young Russian that he only knows the mother of. "You're going to like it here," he smirks, winking, before embracing Francis. Arthur takes her arm at that, though Anya isn't sure if it's solely for her comfort and not also so that the Englishman won't have to spend the whole trip to the hotel being harassed by his brother.

"I remember burning this city down once," he mutters in quiet French and Anya laughs. "Don't worry, you get over feeling like the enemy quick enough."

* * *

They spend one day in Washington, DC, Anya enjoying more than she should having her picture taken in front of the White House. After the museums they have dinner in a fancy restaurant, Alfred for once calm the way Arthur and Francis are.

Anya finds herself very quickly caught up in his charms, the American speaking so lovingly of the founding of the United States while still managing to make even Arthur laugh, Francis interrupting every once and a while to claim credit for a victory here or there. Alfred orders her meal when the waiter comes, an arm around the back of her chair so that he can hear her better.

When Anya apologizes for her accent, not quite sure if he's figured out that it's more Russian than Hungarian, Alfred places a hand on her thigh intimately. "Never apologize for who you are," he says in strong English, the cliché American accent gone. Arthur and Francis, she's aware, have paused their conversation to hear his words. "We cannot change who we were, only be someone better tomorrow. There is no shame in where you come from so don't you let me hear you apologizing again for that Missy, you got it?" She nods, fighting back tears; Anya had never expected her father's enemy to be like this with her.

If only all the world's problems could be cured over dinner.

* * *

The nations meet with their countries' leaders outside the capital building in Colonial Williamsburg, Anya waving goodbye to go explore the streets. To say it's overwhelming is a true understatement: it's loud, everyone speaking in English that is both familiar and foreign, the road dirty, the dress sometimes modern but sometimes 18th century. Eventually Anya finds herself following a man dressed in all black, sitting when she finds herself in a small outdoor theater. She hears him speak of the origins of America, of how what colonists held to be true in 1776 can be applied to the modern day. Those around her clap at certain parts and so she claps too, unsure of why.

She's in the garden behind the Governor's Palace when a hand is placed on her elbow. "I remember this place," Arthur sighs. "I used to bring Alfred here with me, when he was old enough. He plays the violin you know," the man informs her proudly. "I taught him; he's quite good."

"Perhaps we can stage a performance tonight?" Anya offers as they make their way to Francis and Alfred, speaking with two men she's seen before: the blond one is Ludwig Beilschmidt, the brunet Feliciano Vargas. Arthur stops her just short of them, turning her to him.

"Had you discussed with Francis what to do in case-" Arthur starts; someone else cuts off the rest of his question.

"Who's this?" Someone bounds up besides her, Anya taken aback when she realizes that it's the Italian. "Oh, you're so pretty!" the man announces, a large hand finding its way to his shoulder.

"Stop it," Beilschmidt chides in German, pulling the smaller man away from the Russian. "You're being rude. I'm sorry Miss," and switching to English he nods his head to Anya, who can only stare and nod back, her eyes immediately jerking to where Francis is. The French nation is seemingly as caught off guard as she and Arthur are. Alfred is the one to make the first move. "And you are…?"

"Leave Bonnefoy's girl alone!" the American announces, coming forward and throwing an arm around her shoulder. Anya tenses at that, her eyes searching for Arthur who is exchanging silent words with Francis. "You know how hard it is for the frog to pick a translator he likes."

"Of course," Beilschmidt sighs, nodding once more to Anya. "We are sorry to have disrupted your day. We will see the rest of you tomorrow then." A stern hand grabs the Italian's arm, marching him out; the two argue in German and from it Anya catches something about flirting with women when they had decided to make their relationship monogamous.

"Too close," Francis murmurs, walking towards them before dropping his head on Arthur's shoulder. "Fucking hell." The rarity to hearing him curse, let alone in English, makes Anya stifle a giggle.

"Thanks Alfie," Arthur says, smiling weakly at his younger brother while wrapping an arm around Francis's shoulders. "That was… unexpected."

"No problem dude," and he winks at Anya. "You ready to go see something cool? Come on!" She allows herself to be dragged along after that, Francis and Arthur following.

* * *

The school year starts off with a bang and whimper all at once, Francis passing the newspaper across the table one morning: KAL 007, an American plane shot down by the Soviet Union, killing a United States Congressman. Anya's mother had always said the stupid moves, the accidents, were the ones that caused the worst tension in the Cold War. Like a misplaced chess piece that creates a brilliant strategy, it's the unintended that is more dangerous.

After English class she sits in the park. After German class she walks the slow, winding path to Francis's office, the one that takes her down narrow streets and up steep hills paved with cobble stone that no car has driven over. Anya likes the twists and turns, that if she got lost she might never find her way out. It makes her feel small, like laying in the sunflowers with her father used to. If they were small then nothing could hurt them.

Right?

* * *

Quiet whispers in the office ensue over the phone, Manon pressed against the door, closed so that Francis could speak with Alfred. The woman gestures for Anya to join her and they listen with breaths held, only picking up words here and there. When he hangs up Manon sends Anya to sit at the desk, herself waiting by the door for her boss.

"I presume you were listening," he says, the door open only partially. Over the woman's shoulder Anya sees Francis looking at her, smiling weakly for him.

"Do you need anything Francis?" Manon asks quietly, stepping in towards him. The space between their bodies is no longer appropriate for work, but then again Anya reasons, neither is the question.

The nation shrugs. "Sorry."

"Quite alright," she chirps, "I had no plans anyway."

The driver takes Manon home with them, Francis immediately pulling her up the stairs. Anya waves goodbye.

* * *

She next sees Manon in the bathroom, sitting on the side of the tub. The woman tries to grin but fails and Anya, feeling the same, joins her on the edge.

"I know you know," the older woman says. When Anya raises an eyebrow Manon continues. "That Francis is a nation; he told me you know."

"How long have you known?" The woman laughs.

"I have worked for Francis for over ten years; being his occasional girlfriend and continuous secretary means I was eventually told the truth."

"Girlfriend?" Anya is confused sometimes by when Arthur is the one Francis goes to and when he is the one they avoid.

"Once we were to be married," Manon says proudly. "For a few short weeks. I was pregnant." At that the woman looks to her to see how Anya responds. "Nations, you know, cannot-"

"My parents are nations," the Russian interrupts and Manon's eyes widen before narrowing in understanding.

"A true rarity." She doesn't ask who they are; maybe she doesn't have to.

"Was that why Francis was going to marry you?" Anya inquires. "Because-"

"Oui et non," Manon cuts in. "We had talked about getting married for months before that; we still do, sometimes. I love Francis but I am no fool, we cannot grow old together, cannot have children like the one we lost. Only I can grow old." She smiles almost in pain. "When I was younger it was important to me, to be Madame Somebody; now this is enough, whatever it is we have."

"You are very important to him," the young lady tries, wanting to know more but not wanting to be direct. Manon seems to get it.

"Arthur Kirkland?" Anya nods. "He is sometimes the bane of my existence for taking the man I love from me, for hurting him so, but I understand that they and they alone can do what Francis and I cannot. History brings them together; a good résumé brought me to Francis." She sighs. "Francis will still marry me, eventually. He feels he must and maybe he does, keeping me from finding another man who will never be as charming and could never be quite so loving. I am fine with that," she assures Anya, taking the other woman's hand in hers and squeezing it. "He is the nation of love, and to be his wife, even for a few years, will one day be an honor that will be mine and mine alone.

"When I am thirty-five," she finishes. "I told him I want to be married when I am thirty-five."

"That will be nice," Anya says and that she means, truly does, because Manon brings out the best in Francis whenever he's down, moves with him as if she understands him better than anyone else. Anya likes Arthur, likes the relationship he has with Francis, but she likes Manon too and maybe, for a short while, the two forever-fighting nations can let this mortal woman have her turn.

"Yes, it will be." She wraps an arm around Anya, hugging her, as they listen to the sound of Francis padding down the hall.

* * *

Having accidentally called Manon fat Francis decides that perhaps he and Anya should go somewhere else for the end of the year. Monaco is the first place the young Russian requests.

Camille is there, as chic and cold as ever, in a tailored pink coat that Anya complements. That makes the Monegasque blush, hugging her like she's never done and kissing Anya's cheek. The man on Camille's arm, Giordano, is less fortune in his treatment when his girlfriend decides he's paying too much attention to the other women and not enough to her. Francis and Anya laugh at the Seborgian's pain.

They're by the water watching boats prepare for the festivities in a few nights when Francis turns and Anya can just make out in the setting sun her protector kissing Arthur. The Brit smiles at her, hugging her and kissing her cheek. "What are we up to?" he asks.

"Nothing much," Francis smiles. "Just waiting to spend another New Year's Eve with you dearest."

* * *

The next night Anya retires early to her room, sitting by the window with her back to her bed. "Happy birthday Papa," she whispers in Russian, wondering where her parents are and what they're doing, are they still happy? Are they still together? Do they miss her as much as she misses them?

Someone knocks on the door. "Who is it?" she calls out, wiping tears from her eyes. In the dark she hears more than sees the door open, Francis and Arthur entering quietly. The Frenchman comes to sit beside her, pulling her to him and holding her tightly, as Arthur joins them with three plates in his hands.

"It is not a birthday," he assures her, "without cake."

"That I baked!" Francis adds quickly, making his companion scowl. "To Ivan."

"To Ivan."

"To Papa."

* * *

"Then you'll be a tiny bit smaller," Francis teases beside Anya, his breathing labored though he says he is not in pain, Arthur hitting him while still resting under the man's arm. The French nation hisses before sighing.

"Shut up about Brunei already you idiot."

"Shut up both of you!" Camille complains from Anya's other side. Giordano, intelligently, stays silent.

They count down with those all around them, the nations exchanging kisses at midnight before the two Bonnefoys kiss Anya's cheeks at the same time.

Somewhere in West Germany Vitya is with his parents. Somewhere Manon is thinking about them. And somewhere her parents have already rung in the new year, her father sharing his expensive vodka with all the nations.

Anya smiles.

* * *

A half hour later and back inside Camille's house there's the sound of collapsing as Francis slips down the stairs. Giordano calls emergency services while Camille cradles her brother's head, Arthur pushing the man's shirt up to reveal the marred and burnt skin beneath.

And Anya, left to stand and watch in horror, once more remembers that to be a nation was not just to live forever. It was to feel everything your country felt, to suffer it all.


	5. 1984

**Аня: and I, a thousand less one**

1984.

"Bombs," Arthur informs them outside Francis's hospital room. "Idiot says he had felt pain most of the night but ignored it."

"Typical," Camille agrees sadly, burying her head under her boyfriend's chin.

"Can Anya see him yet?" Giordano asks. Arthur nods, turning to face her.

"How-" She stutters as she stands, shaking. "How many?" Arthur takes her arm, guiding her and whispering.

"Two: one in Paris I think, other in Marseille? Something like that."

"His biggest cities," Anya points out.

"Yeah," Arthur sighs. "Yeah."

The nurse pulls back the curtain, revealing a pale Francis laying in bed, his chest rising and falling beneath bandages that seem to do him no good.

"The doctor knows," the Englishman continues quietly, guiding Anya further in; she hadn't realized she'd frozen when she saw her protector like that, his eyes open to the ceiling. "There are special things they can do, for us, but this will take a while to heal. Francis will need a lot of attention, attention I can't necessarily give him." Looking in those green eyes Anya can tell that fact saddens Arthur, can hear it in his voice that's so much more honest than she's used to. "I need you and that woman he loves so much to take care of him."

"Manon?"

"Yeah, that one," Arthur agrees. "He will heal but he needs love." That's when he lets Anya go, his hands falling to one of Francis's blanket-covered legs. They run down the calf to French feet before starting to massage them. Francis groans at that, blinking as if he has just woken up.

"Francis?" Anya says in a small voice, stepping closer and leaning over him so that she is directly in his line of vision. He blinks again, confused, before closing his eyes. A single tear escapes. "No no no!" Her hands find the sides of his face, wiping away the tear as she kisses his forehead. "No, Francis, it's ok, this is fine, I've-" She can't lie, she can't say she's seen worst when they both know her father protected her from such things. "I understand, you know I do. It's just- you, you scared me is all." She smiles weakly. "You know how much I love you and need you. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you."

Slowly, very slowly, Francis quirks an eyebrow before it falls back into place.

"Well," and Anya laughs through her sadness, sitting beside him and taking his hand in both of hers, "I don't mean that part, I mean being here in France."

A short burst of air from Francis's strong nose seems to indicate his amusement.

"Just- just rest, ok? For me?"

Fingers squeeze her hand lightly and at that Anya doesn't understand, looking to Arthur who steps forward to meet the man's gaze. She supposes that having known one another for a thousand years the two men can by now communicate on some other level.

"He wants you to lay next to him," Arthur finally announces, "which is a stupid idea and he knows it, but still." The Londoner leans down to kiss the Parisian gently, sweetly, more like how Manon tends to kiss Francis than how Arthur normally does.

Love, she thinks; Francis had said they'd always loved at all the wrong times.

And so Anya shifts, Arthur helping so that she can lay under Francis's arm, one of her hands over his heart. The Brit sits on his other side, holding one of his hands, and like that they pass the first day of 1984.

* * *

Francis sits on the couch, his legs propped up and a blanket tucked around him, as Camille relays what she had seen beside him, sitting on the ottoman. Anya laughs at the sister's good-natured story, handing the French nation a cup of coffee before sitting beside him on the floor. She holds his hand tight.

The last month had been difficult. At first Anya hadn't wanted to return to university for the semester, insisting she could stay home, it was fine, she wanted to be with Francis. But Manon had been the one to say no and so instead a schedule had been established:

Manon would go in to work early, gathering anything she would need later in the day. At lunch she would leave for Francis's, Clément there to man the office all day. The secretary-lover had within the first week all but moved in to the house.

Anya would help Francis in the morning: coffee, breakfast, getting him dressed and down the hallway to sit in his office or perhaps lay on the couch by the window. On days where she had an early class Vitya would come and trade with her so she could spend the rest of the day in the library or class, returning after dinner to help Francis to bed.

Vitya was the one who would take the French nation out for walks in a park, driving him to the store to give him something to do. For all of January, Vitya's visits have been the man's favorite.

Now by early February Francis is more or less healthy once again; he occasionally still has trouble standing or pain in his arms, but it's becoming less frequent. Manon however continues to insist that he rest when not at work, and so Camille had stopped by for a few days before flying home to regale them with tales from the Winter Olympics.

It had been behind the Iron Curtain; Anya couldn't have gone, even if she'd wanted to. And Francis, he had insisted on staying with her.

"Oh!" As if remembering something stupidly forgotten Camille pulls from her bag a thin envelope bursting with what seemed to be a thick letter. "Here dearest," and she hands it to Francis who doesn't bother to turn it over, to read the name. That makes the Russian suspicious.

"Is that from my father?" Anya asks directly, and both Bonnefoys eye her sadly.

"He had wanted to write you," Camille starts, almost apologizing, "but had admitted he did not know where to start." He'd always found it hard to show his heart, her mother's voice reminds her, and Anya would have to appreciate that with a man like her father, one must be gentle.

"I understand." They'd said their goodbyes back in Hungary and unless some letter told her she would be soon reunited with her parents, the pain of words would be too much to bear. She just wants to see her parents, even from afar, just to know they're still ok and that she isn't imagining things, hasn't forgotten the green of her mother's eyes or the bend in her father's nose.

"You are so very strong," the Monegasque murmurs, stroking the side of Anya's face before kissing her head.

"She gets that from her parents," Francis assures his sister.

* * *

Manon is left to the man the office as Francis sets off for a meeting. He had explained to his superior that he would need a translator who was a native Russian speaker, and that that was why he was bringing his new employee and not the normal old Frenchwoman. Anya's heart had raced until her protector had been given the go ahead, because this was a daring plan but one that she had to see through.

The sudden changeover in power for the Soviet Union Communist Party means that Francis and several other nations would be speaking with Soviet officials in Paris in a hastily thrown-together meeting. It also meant that Anya's father would be here, albeit at a distance she could not cross. Not that he'd want her to, Francis had repeated in the car; if you love someone you let them go and her father loved her more than anyone else has ever loved another.

They wait in the lobby as French officials mull about until finally Francis gets his assignment (dealing with French citizens in the Soviet Union and Russians in the French republic) and behind them a panic starts. Anya's eyes are wide as she turns, knowing that the sound confusion was over the approaching Soviet party. Yet on the far side of the room it's as if her feet are made of lead, her body stuck in its place.

"You cannot say anything," Francis whispers in her ear; she won't dare to look up, to see if he's looking at her or if he too is looking straight ahead. The French nation puts an arm around her waist.

"I know. I just want to see him is all, even for a moment."

A hush falls over the room as the doors are opened, the party moving through the space.

The pounding in her ears is deafening, guards first. Then men in pristine suits and uniforms, all out of fashion: the leaders of her once-country.

Then her father enters.

Oh God he's so tall, and she'd forgotten just how much. And his shoulders, those broad shoulders that she used to sit on, or those arms that would pick her up to kiss her…. She's looking at the back of his head but the party pauses just across the room from them and then he stands up straight, gaze searching the room while officials discuss something shortly.

Violet eyes fall on her.

Anya holds her breath as their eyes meet and though her Soviet father had been wearing a mask of coolness, for just half a second it melts into something soft and alone and longing, the same face she knows she's sending back. She smiles, to make her father proud, to silently say that she's ok and she's forgiven him for everything she never knew, that she still loves him, oh God she still loves him, with everything a daughter had.

She expects him to wink like he used to, or maybe nod just a little. Instead he tears his gaze from her suddenly, looking away and following some man who must be his new leader. Her father doesn't look back.

Arms catch her as she falls, Francis sitting on the floor beside her. "You will never know," he whispers in hushed Russian, "how painful that was for Ivan Braginski, to ever look away from you." Yet Anya imagines she might understand just a little bit from the way her heart now aches.

* * *

Francis happily babbles at the kitchen table, phone pressed to his ear by his shoulder, fingers twirling the curly cord. Anya brings him a cup of coffee as the man continues on in relaying to Matthew his excitement at beating Spain in football and congratulating his almost-son on his new Prime Minister. Then he asks if the Canadian will be coming out for the Tour de France because, as he puts it, "I have someone I think you'd like to meet," and the man winks at Anya.

* * *

They return to the United States for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Francis and Anya meeting up with Arthur, Matthew, and Alfred to settle in at the American's apartment. From there they dress to impress before heading out for something that Anya is much more worried about.

"You'll be fine," Alfred assures her, Arthur cutting him off by pulling Anya away with an arm around the shoulders. The American just goes off to bother Matthew and Francis instead.

"You will be fine," the Brit echoes. "It's not like he knows who you are or anything. I imagine Alfred thinks this will be wonderful for you."

"There'll be pictures," the Russian states firmly and when Arthur raises an eyebrow she elaborates. "There will be pictures of you four shaking hands with the President of the United States, the other nations will see those won't they?" Arthur nods without having seen where she was going with this yet. "My parents will see those pictures."

"Ah." First the Englishman seems a little sad before chuckling to himself and grinning wide. "That's brilliant Anya; they'll get a copy of you shaking Reagan's hand too."

"They'll know I'm alright," she finishes. "They'll see me and they'll know I'm alright." Because the Eastern Bloc was boycotting, and so her parents weren't here.

* * *

Her protector is crying he's laughing so hard, drunk on victory after France had beaten Brazil 2-0. The crowd they'd drawn for football was immense, the men all laughing about it as they sit in Alfred's apartment drinking beer. Anya lays quietly under one of Arthur's arms, smiling to see Francis so happy. She can't wait to see him tell Manon everything.

* * *

In school they all find it funny, Reagan's joke; Anya never laughs.

"What's wrong?" Vitya whispers in the library, pushing hair behind her ear and kissing at her cheek. She only turns her face away, those words echoing over and over in her mind:

"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

She knows it wasn't meant maliciously but that the Cold War has come to this, where her father can be so treated– Anya tries to remember Francis's words instead, that this isn't about her father, this is about the Soviet system and he would survive it as he's survived many horrible things in the past. She just wants it all to be over, to be in those arms again. Anya can't wait to get away.

* * *

The amount of time they've been spending with Arthur is insane, Anya thinks. Most days he and Francis still bicker and still argue, but to think that they were England and France, that they were still here and together after centuries of trying to kill one another, is amazing.

Arthur comes over once the United Kingdoms and China have signed an agreement dealing with the return of Hong Kong to Chinese control in a decade. The Brit nearly drinks himself to death, complaining about someone named Leon constantly lighting fire crackers under his ass. Francis laughs that it really was impressive, to be so bad as to make Arthur miss days spent with Alfred.

The next time the Brit visits there's less to laugh over, an attempted assassination on Thatcher and members of the British government in Brighton breaking the man. He lays in his room in Francis's house for nearly a week, refusing to do anything. Anya crawls into bed beside him and holds him the way he's held her. She doesn't know what exactly brings them together, binds them together, but it's something and she loves the Brit for it.

Then there's the BBC report on famine in Ethiopia, and that gives Anya new purpose.

"I've never seen her like this," Vitya comments to Francis as they watch her going through the Frenchman's papers in his private study. She's trying to find all she can to take with them to the European Economic Community meeting, to get as much money as possible freed for helping the starving people. "It's like she's a new person."

"No no," Arthur interrupts on the young man's other side, "she's still the same person. Now she's just got something to shine for, just like her mother." Maybe, Anya thinks as she looks up, that last comment was a mistake.

"You know her mother?" Vitya asks, missing the panic in Arthur and Francis. Lamely the Brit nods.

"Government things, you know." Arthur too now knows that Vitya will be told the truth. Eventually. "Come now then chaps, let's help her help others."

* * *

"You're doing beautifully," Francis whisper in her ear; he'd had to give the presentation to his fellow nations, but the words he'd said had been her words, delivering whatever Anya had chosen to give him.

"I want to make the world a better place," the Russian says with a strength she didn't know she had, watching nations discuss the presentation.

"Don't worry," her protector smiles, kissing her forehead, "you will. I have never doubted it." Someone approaches them, shaking hands with Francis. "Lammert, how are you?"

"Good, good." The man smiles at him, then Anya. "I'd like to make a personal contribution right now."


	6. 1985

**Аня: and I, a thousand less one**

1985.

Out on what Anya is starting to think Francis considers a double date, the man remarks to Manon something or other about Mikhail Gorbachev and what his coming to power may mean for the Cold War. Vitya, beside Anya, squeezes her hand.

"How's your supper?"

"Very good," she says for his benefit as happily as she can. "We'll have to try making this one night." Her boyfriend seems wary of that suggestion.

"Only if Francis is helping." Across the table Manon smiles at her.

* * *

They're going to Schengen for her, Francis insists. They're going to see Lammert again and his dear Emma, Francis insists. This isn't at all about world politics Anya, Francis insists.

And when the Schengen Agreement is all signed a very sheepish looking French nation joins the Russian in the park, nudging her with his shoulder. "Got you a present."

"Oh? What is it?"

"Borderless travel!" Francis says excitedly and Anya can't help but roar with laughter, hugging him.

* * *

Vitya takes very quickly to British style driving, Francis and Anya standing shocked before Arthur's house and watching the young man practice going up and down the gravel.

"I like this kid more every time I see him," Arthur mutters, taking Francis's hand. Anya just shakes her head as her boyfriend blows her a kiss, parking the car. "Shall we all retire to the backyard for some tea then?"

"I live in," Francis says in terse, over-annunciated English, "a period piece." When Arthur slaps the back of his head for that the two start bickering, Anya and Vitya left to follow after them.

"I like that car," her boyfriend informs her. "What is it again?"

"A Rolls Royce." Anya enjoys cars in the same way she enjoys the news: they are a necessary part of life and so she insists on being knowledgable.

"Not so bad driving it actually," Vitya sighs. "You should try it."

"Oh no. No no no. I live in Paris, I do not drive."

"And what about when we move to the countryside?" the German teases and Anya meets his eyes, holding them to take in their sincerity.

"You can teach me then," she says a little breathlessly and Vitya smiles.

* * *

The LiveAid concert in London has Arthur's head pounding for days before, but morning of the show he's up and chipper.

In the Wembley Stadium they get special seating, Anya between Vitya and Arthur, Francis under one of the English nation's arms. They sing along to the songs in the worst voices possible, joining in the thousands of people shouting to be heard. They take turns dancing with each other: Anya and Vitya, Francis and Arthur, Anya and Arthur, Francis and Vitya, then one big mess of limbs going everywhere.

And they're so exhausted by the time they get home, crashing on the couches, that all they can do is laugh and wait for tomorrow's call from Alfred and Matthew to ask if they'd had as good a time in London as they'd had in Philadelphia.

To which, of course, the answer will be even better.

* * *

The next month they see the two former colonies in Japan, everyone dressed solemnly. Arthur sticks to Alfred like glue, Francis showing Vitya and Matthew around.

When everything is done Anya sits on a low wall alone, wanting time to reflect. Someone sits beside her: Alfred, she can tell from the way his knees are moving.

"Do not judge me too harshly," he whispers, "for the things I have done."

"I am no one to judge," Anya sighs, reminding herself that the American knew who her mother was, but not her father. "Believe me, I understand."

"I remember waking with this awful feeling in my chest," Alfred mutters. "Then I looked to the calendar and realized why. I'd forgotten that that was the day they were going to bomb Japan."

"What did you do during the war?" Anya asks quietly. She's learned that Arthur worked on cracking codes and evacuating civilians, that Francis helped the French Resistance. Her mother, the records seem to indicate, worked in the planning office before finally moving into field combat when World War II grew desperate. Her father was a Red Army soldier.

"I raised money," Alfred says, sighing heavily but holding her gaze. "I raised morale. I helped smuggle Matthew things before deciding I had to do something or regret not having acted, so I joined the army and went to the Eastern Theater. Everything I know about the Pacific Theater I learned in documents and letters."

"Has Mr. Honda forgiven you?"

Shrugging Alfred mumbles, "Yeah but, I don't know. Can you ever really forgive someone that many awful things?"

Anya thinks of her mother, of her father, of her aunt and of her uncle. "If you love them enough you can."

A large hand takes her, giving it a squeeze. "I know."

"For how long?"

"Not long enough," Alfred laughs. "I should have seen it though: you have his jaw, his voice, his sweet disposition. You're everything that was ever good about Ivan."

"He's still good," the young woman says instinctively. "It's–"

"It's complicated, I know," and he wraps an arm around Anya, pulling her in close to kiss her head the way her father used to. "One day you'll have to tell me about the man you know him as, and I'll tell you about the man who was once my friend."

* * *

That day comes sooner than they'd expected when there's a call in the early morning from the United States.

"Hello?" Anya yawns. She and Francis had fallen asleep on the couch watching a film noir marathon. Her neck makes a cracking noise as she rolls her head from side to side.

"Did you know of Samantha Smith?" a hoarse voice asks and despite her tiredness, Anya thinks that maybe Alfred has been crying.

"Yeah, sweet little American thing. Francis jokes she's like my American counterpart."

"She died." There's a long pause before Alfred speaks again. "I went with her, to the Soviet Union. I was her friend. I don't know what to do."

"You want to hop a plane?"

* * *

By the time Alfred gets his vacation to come to Paris, where at the airport he hugs Anya and Francis for several minutes longer than is necessary, it's September and a joint expedition by the Americans and French has found the wreckage of the Titanic. It prompts the French republic to get his box of early 20th century photos out.

"Now," the man starts heavily, taking in Anya and Alfred, "there's gonna be a lot of things in here that neither of you know."

"I know you've had my brother," Alfred says darkly.

"And you've had my mother," Anya quips which makes Francis roll his eyes.

"I've had everyone's mothers and the majority of their brothers too, I know, I know." As he speaks he lays out several photo albums, Alfred picking one at random to start with, Anya taking another.

There are several pages of Matthew and Camille and someone else with darker skin and the most beautiful eyes, all of them taken in various places with Francis by their side. A smaller portion of them feature Arthur, Alfred, or both. After that there are a few pictures with a small blonde girl before moving into pictures of other European nations: Mr. Rose, Miss Rose, a stern looking man that Anya thinks is probably their brother.

"Lili," Francis interrupts, pointing out the small girl from before as she stands between Francis and, oh, Mr. Zwingli? "You'd like her."

"That one goes backwards in time," Alfred jokes. "I swear she's growing younger." The two men share a knowing laugh.

"Who's that?" Anya interrupts, pointing at someone in Alfred's album.

"Oh! You recognize him surely, non? Here, try this one." Francis turns the page and there he is, beside her mother in imperial clothing.

"Roderich Edelstein?" She's seen two pictures of him, old pictures, but it's been so long and Anya had put the Austrian nation out of her mind. "You said you two were enemies."

"We were," Francis agrees, nodding. Alfred leans towards the Russian.

"That means he's had sex with him when they were getting along."

"Non non, we also had sex while we were enemies," the French nation counters.

"Why do you have so many pictures with him?" Anya asks, flipping a couple of pages in Alfred's album: all feature Francis and Roderich with a variety of other people.

The French republic sighs, taking the album to look at fondly. "I took care of him, after the divorce. I took care of many, many nations during that time, though Camille had to take care of me as well."

"Did you–" Anya swallows. "Did you take care of my father too? During his revolution?"

Slowly the man nods. "Alfred's revolution was liberating," the older nation begins. "Mine was bloody. Your father's was… indescribable."

"I didn't recognize him," the American breathes, "the first time I saw him after it all started."

"Only because I have known him so long," Francis concedes, "could I still detect the little boy beneath the crazed man."

"He never talked about it," Anya whispers, "until right before I left."

"Believe me when I say," her protector sighs, taking one of Anya's hands and holding it tight, "while I would never wish a dramatic political change on an enemy, I cannot wait for your father's next one."

Alfred nods.

* * *

In Switzerland they are once more joined by the three English-speaking nations, Anya getting to know Lili while the one's brother spoke with the other's protector. Lili is sweet and Anya likes it, the same sweetness that Camille and Emma and her mother all have. When she makes a comment about it to Arthur after dinner he laughs a little.

"You should meet my cousin then," he says. "I think all the female nations have something to them, because they are female in a male world. I do not envy them their struggles but I do envy their strength to persevere through it all."

After that Anya is left to explore Geneva on her own, perhaps the first time she's been alone since moving to France. Francis had explained that while their nations were not being represented at the meeting going on nearby between the President of the United States and the Soviet General Secretary, it was in their best interest to be close by incase something occurs. Nations incarnate fill the homes of Swiss government employees that had been hand-picked by Basch Zwingli; Francis and his family get to stay in Mr. Zwingli's private house.

As she passes people outside she takes note of the calm nations mixed among mortals like herself, how they look at her or wink. At twenty-one she's become a normal sighting wherever Francis is; they treat her like one of them.

Finding a scarf the most interesting shade of blue with just a hint of pink in the threads, Anya buys it before returning once more to her temporary residence. Francis, Arthur, Camille, and Matthew are all sitting around the dining room table talking about what Anya guesses are notes from today's meeting. Manon hides in the kitchen, so the Russian joins her there.

"I'm very rarely brought wherever Mr. Kirkland is," the Frenchwoman whispers. "It is quite bizarre to be here."

"Francis depends on you," Anya reasons. "And besides, he's sharing your bed, not Arthur's."

"I think that's more Matthew and Camille's doing than mine," the woman laughs. "At least Geneva is lovely."

"That it is," Anya sighs. "That it is."

* * *

In a small ceremony mainly filled with nations, Vitya standing off to the side, Manon on Francis's arm, Anya Bonnefoy (as the French government registered her) is named a Goodwill Ambassador on behalf of those present. She hopes when news reaches her parents, they'll be proud.


	7. 1986

**Аня: and I, a thousand less one**

1986.

"Gaddafi is running his mouth again," Arthur murmurs, sipping at his tea and reading one of the many morning newspapers. Anya looks over her shoulder from her paper to see the article in question.

"I am convinced at this point," Francis with another paper begins, "that that is his job. What now?"

"Same old, same old," the Brit figures.

"Do you ever worry if suddenly there'll be a change in the status quo?" Anya asks and Manon, across from her, nods in agreement.

"These tensions are not healthy," the older woman adds.

Francis sighs. "What separates us–" he gestures to Arthur, Camille, and himself "–from humans is this."

"What?" Anya asks but Camille is the one who answers with a smile.

"We are always worried."

* * *

She's woken by someone jostling her, Camille judging by the smell and the way her body feels as she lays down atop Anya. "We need to get up."

"What's wrong?" Anya gets in, the last word stretched out by her yawn. The clock reads about three in the morning.

"Francis has to get to West Berlin," the younger Bonnefoy says quite seriously. "I'd explain but I'm not sure either. We're just waiting to leave to find out how Arthur is getting there as well."

"Ok."

* * *

They have an hour's wait once they get to the airport, Anya calling Vitya to let him know where she was. "Have you seen the news yet?" he asks.

"No, Francis wanted me to call you first."

"Stay safe," is all Vitya says.

"I will, I will. I love you."

"I love you too."

"Bye."

"Bye."

* * *

Those nations present congregate in the large hotel room, Ludwig sitting on the foot of the bed openly weeping. Francis and Arthur discuss the night's events while waiting for word from Alfred; Matthew who had been in Sweden sits on a couch with Camille. Anya, not sure what else to do, sits beside the West German nation who startles at that, shifting away and refusing to meet her eyes.

"I am so sorry," the young woman whispers in German her mother and uncle taught her. At her words Ludwig looks up, big blue eyes that the two Soviet nations always spoke of. He looks just like that little boy they remembered so fondly. "Is there anything I can do, for you?"

The immediate answer is a shake of the head before the German catches himself, whispering, "I don't want Feliciano to come up, and I don't want him to hear me like– like this." His voice, as if on cue, cracks.

"I'll get Camille to call, how about that?"

"Ja."

* * *

They stay the week, Anya having already graduated university with top marks thanks to the work ethic her father had instilled in her (and the years of private lessons). Her official job now was Franco-English Incarnate Liaison, meaning that she could go between Francis and Arthur at world meetings or when the two were mad at each other, filling the rest of her time with whatever struck her fancy. Normally that meant training with Basch Zwingli and Emma Rose to become a certified translator so she could branch out into non-nation international bodies, though she stilled admittedly enjoyed the company of nations the most.

Those dead and injured Anya is tasked with remembering in Francis's letter back to his government, Camille helping while her brother spends hours on the phone with who knows which government now. At first Arthur had been the one staying with Ludwig but at some point the decision was made that it'd be best if the German rested with Francis and the Frenchman's entourage in the underused German apartment the Bonnefoys kept.

Anya avoids Ludwig as much as she can to keep herself from asking questions about his brother or her mother, fearful of what she might reveal or learn. It becomes easier when Vitya lands in West Berlin, all her time now occupied by her boyfriend who holds her close. With a security escort (because Francis is terribly paranoid now and rightfully so), the two go for a tour of the town. For lunch they eat near the wall, Anya's eyes unable to be diverted. She would have sworn her father was on the other side of that wall, staring back just as intently, as if they could see each other through the concrete and metal and hatred and stupidity of mankind.

When they get back Francis informs them that a message has been intercepted, blame finally having a place to rest, yet there is no rest for them.

* * *

Alfred keeps calling, Francis refusing to pick up for the American. Camille explains in hushed whispers to Anya and Vitya that the US is launching an air-strike on Libya in retaliation for the West Berlin bombing, but that the nation has been denied support and overflight rights by a large part of Europe, including France.

Their plane, however, takes off without much fuss: Francis stares pensively out the window, Camille reads across from him; Anya and Vitya talk about Vitya's upper-level studies he's completing now so he can be a professor of international relations; Ludwig is silent in the back.

When her boyfriend goes to the bathroom Ludwig moves to take his seat, whispering to Anya, "He hasn't figured it out yet?"

"No. He knows Francis works for the government and that I help him, but the rest he's still in the dark about."

The German nods and Anya wonders if he's figured out yet what her secret from him is as well.

* * *

Someone had suggested that perhaps Anya go south so that she was not distracted by what was going on in the Parisian townhouse. Or she could go spend time with Vitya's family whom she really did love, his Hungarian mother, his German father, his uncle convinced everything was a conspiracy. But the young woman refuses; it's been ten days since the airstrike and she knew exactly where she belonged: here, helping those she could.

She near collapses on her bed, barely registering having fallen asleep between her head making contact with the pillow and someone dragging her out of bed.

"Stop," Anya tries to mutter though it comes out more as a mumble of vowels and open-mouthed yawns.

A face with lines harder than she was used to presses itself against her hair, and it's then that the young woman realizes the man carrying her out into the hall and down the stairs is broader, taller, stronger than she's used to. "I'm sorry Anya, but I can't."

"Ludwig?" she whispers, blinking to fight away the darkness and try and see him.

"Francis said you have to see."

Once in the kitchen Ludwig puts her down, giving Anya a hug she had neither expected nor needed; unnecessary displays of emotions weren't like the German nation, her mother and Gil had told her that. The man leaves.

A hand falls softly on her shoulder and turning the Russian finds Francis with red eyes crying silently. Her heart is beginning to race, convinced the worst has occurred.

"Francis?" Anya asks hollowly. The man only nods before taking her hand and walking her to the table where Camille and Manon are sitting, the two women holding each other.

And in that moment, seeing the papers on the table bearing Berwald Oxenstierna's hand and words like "nuclear disaster" and "Soviet Union in origin," seeing the tears of those around her– Anya collapses on the floor, and cries.

* * *

Most days she sits staring at the wall, a thousand black and white films playing in her mind on that blank canvas, most centered around her parents and all the horrible things that could be happening to them right now. The phone never stops ringing, Francis having issued the order than any and all information about a possible nuclear catastrophe within the Soviet Union was to be relayed to him immediately.

Some days Camille makes tea. Out in the hallway the woman whispers to someone that she had always admired the Hungarian nation who is strong and beautiful, and that she is sure Erzsébet will get Ivan through this. They'll both be fine, all the nations even. They have to be, don't they?

Other days Manon brings her chocolate. The woman tends to pause at the door, watching Anya. Her hushed voice constantly tells Francis to do something, to tell someone, that Anya can't go through this on her own. They needed to break protocol, they needed to claim her as Ivan's daughter to get information, but the French republic never consents. He was charged with keeping her safe no matter the cost by Ivan Braginski, and that includes keeping her parents a secret.

Ludwig, still resting in Paris, sits beside Anya one day for hours. He stares at the wall too and the woman has to wonder what terrible images he's seeing, of his brother and almost-mother and of people he knew, people he hurt, people he would like to see once more. She is grateful for the silence of the German nation who leaves with his dignity still in tack, never trying to say or do anything profound.

Francis never comes. Anya knows he is mourning too, though neither knows what or who they are mourning.

* * *

A week later and Vitya announces he's done letting the woman he loves suffer in a dark room the way he knows she did when she first arrived in France, wallowing but also unable to move on. He takes her out to the countryside, to his parent's house, where his mother sings old Hungarian folk songs and they eat outside under a tree. Anya cries on her boyfriend's lap before she feels two sets of old but loving hands fall upon her back: Vitya's parents.

"You are not alone," his father says in soft Russian. "You are not alone."

* * *

A few days later Manon, half-dressed, comes bursting into her room and grabs Anya's wrist to drag her down the hall to where Francis, still in his sleeping pants and an old sweater and glasses, is reading at his desk.

The woman shoves something small and crumbled and dirty looking into the man's hand and immediately his face lights up, shocked beyond anything Anya has ever seen.

His hands shake as he scrambles to open the small letter, unfolding it and smoothing it over the desk. The three of them peer over it and Anya weeps at the sight of that familiar hand, her father writing in his Russian.

"Tell my Anastasiya we are safe and love her." A solitary but large В for Vanya finishes the short letter.

For the first time in nearly a month, Anya cries tears of joy.

* * *

Two pale, blond men sit across from the Frenchman and Russian at the kitchen table. "We cannot reveal any more," the shorter one says in a flat, emotionless voice. Anya isn't sure she'll ever under what's going on in the Norwegian's mind. "We have already told you everything demanded of us–."

"Lukas," the man beside him cuts off: Berwald Oxenstierna. Anya liked him because he was as tall as her father, used to the harsher climate the way her papa was too; she'd like to get to know the Swede more, to see how else he was like the Russian he had warred against many, many times. "What my companion means to say is that anything beyond what we have already told you and your ward–" the Swedish kingdom nods his head courteously towards Anya, whose proper surname few other nations knew "–is not possible."

A hand beneath the table finds hers, squeezing it, and Anya squeezes back to tell Francis that it's time to break protocol. Her father had wanted it kept secret but she had to know more, had to know how safe they were, that he wasn't lying, what was happening.

"This," Francis says, head still down, "is Ivan Braginski and Erzsébet Héderváry's daughter. She has the right to know."

Big green eyes look to the two men: the Norwegian seems confused, betraying himself as he draws his eyebrows together and sizes her up, looking for anything he may have missed in never noticing before. Mr. Oxenstierna, though, nods as if he has known all along and Anya suspects that perhaps he has.

"Your mother," he says in soft French, "was the epitome of a woman." From his briefcase the Swede removes a folder. "Since you are blood, these you may see. Now most of the documents are speculations we have made, based on the readings and what has been released by the Soviet Union…."

* * *

In the folder had been a picture of Anya's parents in a town near Chernobyl years earlier. Her mother's smile had been wide, the woman comfortable in pants with that ring on her finger. And her father had been so handsome that day, smiling slightly with his arm around his lover, just like how the mortal daughter remembers him.

The Russian tucks the image away in her bra, to keep her parents close to her heart wherever she goes.


End file.
